On February 1,
2001 David Boevers sent the following message to the Stagecraft
mailing list---------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Boevers
Subject: Non-standard Theatrical Terms
Hello all, I'm in the process of compiling a glossary of nonstandard theatrical
shop vocabulary. I'd appreciate it if everyone would dip into their proprietary
glossaries and send me some good ones. Some examples to get you started:
"wikki-wikki" & "fwubida" - terms relating to unit stability
"doesee-doe" & "Iwo Jima" - referring to material handling
and my favorite so far
"Toblerones" - for periaktoi.
Anyway, let me know if you've got a good one.
Thanks much,
David
---------------------------------------------------------------
Over the next couple of weeks list members sent in their favorite terms, phrases
and stories from their experiences working in the theater industry. I've taken
the liberty of organizing them under loosely-defined categories while trying
to maintain the conversational flavor of the posts. If you'd like to contribute,
email me at
and I'll add your terms to the list.

Skoshe --
Measurement term, Slightly less than a nudge Spelling varies since I've never
seen it written. Stephen Litterst

Around here, I've used (in varying proportions) hair, smidge,
and scootch.
Which begs the question of conversion factors... If there are 4 hairs to the
smidge, and 3 smidges to the scootch, how many scootches are in a skoshe? Or
is a skoshe half a scootch? And where do the gnat's ass and nudge fit into all
of this? Or are those metric units? Of course, then there are units of force...
the oomph, kick, tap, and wallop... anyone wanna try those? Paul D Schreiner

Gnat's ass - unit of measure similar to Skoshe Peter Whinnery

British usage is
a 'Gnat's'. To what part of a gnat's anatomy this refers I leave to your
imagination, although I believe that, officially, it's a whisker. Frank Wood

Similar to skoshe, here in the South we like to use the term frog's hair, as in "Move that platform downstage a frog's hair." Mike Grismore

"Skoshe"
is an Americanization of a Japanese word meaning "small amount." It's
transliterated as "sukoshi," and comes out sounding like "s'koshi" and thus, `skoshe'. I first heard this as a military brat in post-War Japan,
and suspect that, like so many other useful words of non-English origin, it
was brought home by returning soldiers. Pat Kight

I have not heard
anyone mention the smallest measurement known to the theatre world, a RCH.
Commonly translated as a red c*nt hair... still meant to be a small, small amount. gregg hillmar

On the RCH topic
(which I had originally decided to avoid) I have heard distinctions in size
based on color (red being the finest hair, an RCH is a more precise unit of
measurement than a plain C hair) Colin Buckhurst

Yo-yo =
Measuring tape. Steve McBee

Slipstick = Tape Measure.
That one threw me for a loop packing for a site survey. The Production manager
asked if I'd packed slipsticks and I had a hard time keeping a straight face
when I asked what he meant. Stephen Litterst

Wasn't a slipstick a sliderule? Harold Hallikainen

Guesser... Tape measure Mark O'Brien

Or the measurement Saigons, a unit of measurement brought into being after a successful
musical whose theatre plans differed from actuality. Thomas Hares

I remember mixing
up a batch of industrial kitchen degreaser to clean the fish oil off of some
steel and asking the head carp how much stuff to how much water, and became
immediately familiar with the Some-to-Some Ratio. Chris "Chris"
Babbie

When something
was measured incorrectly, you must have used an Ollie instead of a Stanley.
(From Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.) Sigrid Wolf

Zimmer -
another term for a cordless drill with screwdriver bits, coined by Al Fanjoy,
University of Delaware

Large unit of measure: Butt Load. Obviously not a precise measurement. Be sure not to confuse
the Standard with a Metric Butt Load. Sigrid Wolf

Small ambiguous
units of measurement: Sure I used skoshe, but I also used smidge, dab, bit,
tad, smidgeon, etc. I used these when I was with two high school students
trying to bounce focus the Front of House. We never made any sort of conversion
chart from one unit to another. Ken Porter

I thought I'd add to "hair, smidge, scootch and rch" one of my favorite new terms: "Just move it a snot". Not pretty, but appropriate and indeed funny. Ed Romanoff

As another synonym
for "Precision Adjustment Tool", we have always called the sledge
in the shop the Micro-adjuster, the idea being you can move *the entire
set* by tiny fractions of a millimeter. Joel Lord

The one we always throw around here is "A metric crap load" not to be confused with a butt load, as this is metric. It is defined as the max weight that can be lifted by a person, but only if they would get hurt in the process. i.e.: a 150lb speaker

Furlongs per Fortnight is a unit of speed used to measure motorized battens, or really anything for that matter, that travels insatiably slow. The actual speed is 1.033399e-7 mph or 220 yards per 2 weeks. M. Scott

I have heard "Percussive
Maintenance" as Percussive Re-alignment. Sigrid Wolf

Also Knockometer. Frank Wood

One of the ones that come to mind here at Syracuse is Toshi (pronounced
"toe-she"). It is basically a large pole with foam wrapped around
one end (imagine a 18' or 20' Q-Tip). We use it to help push battens/linesets/electrics
around "obstacles" on the set. I've also seen a lighting designer
use it to "focus" an impossible to reach instrument. VERY handy! I
can't think of a load-in or strike that it hasn't been used. David M. Bowman

I wonder if that is named after Toshira Ogawa, a lighting designer who taught
at Ohio State Univ. in the late 1970s-early '80s. I remember him as a very good
lighting designer, and he could, in a pinch, do a great deal of focusing with
a stick. Long stage braces were his favorite back then. Watching him put in
a gel from 14' below the pipe was a treat. Steve Boone

When I used to
be at the State Theatre in Easton, Pa, a Toshi stick was called a Tit Stick,
cause it's used to breast things. Tony Galanti

It started out
as a trick played on freshmen, but we more often than not will call a kerf a Bladewipe. It's one of those smile-when-you-say-that things. Gerald
Ford

And the largest pry-bar with a hooked end is referred to as the Ford tool. Chris "Chris" Babbie

American screwdriver = a hammer Pat Dillon

Of course I've heard this one as a Union Screwdriver = hammer.... gregg hillmar

We use to call that one a Chicago Screwdriver. Tom Hansen

I thought that that was a crescent wrench... Michael J. Banvard

Oh, you mean an adjustable ballpeen hammer... S. Mooney

And here I was just telling a crew the other day that a hammer was a bolt-driver and a one-inch spade bit. Amazing range of uses for one tool. David
Boevers

I thought we used the screwdriver as a chisel! James Wenting

Heck, after some of my experiences with students in the shop, I thought we used
a chisel for a screwdriver! John Bracewell

Naah...
Everybody knows that *every* tool in your toolbag is a hammer, except for the
screwdriver which is actually a prybar/chisel, and the cordless drill which
is actually a screwdriver. Dave Vick

Back in my schooldays, I had a very pedantic woodwork master. What we would
all call a 'screwdriver', he would call a screwturner. If asked for a
'screwdriver', he would produce a hammer! Frank Wood

Scene from a load-in, Vancouver BC:
American Tour Staging Guy: "Y'all got the greatest things up here in Canada
- Roberston Screws. And I have them!" (Passes around the familiar blue
boxes, to the delight of the local crew.) ATSG: "And.... I have some Robertson
Screw Drivers!" (With a grin and a wink, produces several hammers,
to the dismay of the local crew.... but we were actually to use these screws
as fascia pins, and later remove them with drivers/turners.) Tom Heemskerk

An Electric's Metric = C-Wrench. Chris "Chris" Babbie

Slappin' Rag While learning scene painting some years ago, I was introduced to a wonderful
tool - the flogger. At the time there was a 'non-traditional' (OLDER) student
in the class. She saw the purpose of the tool and called it what was - slappin'
rag. The term has stuck in my mind, and even today I teach my students the importance
of the slappin' rag. Tony Hardin

I hadn't thought
about it in this connection, but a few years ago, working with some students
where we were using a 16-pound sledge in addition to several other kinds of
hammer, the students starting referring to the sledge as the BFH. You
figure out expletive behind the acronym. John Bracewell
Tweaker: any hammer over 5 lbs that isn't the biggest in the shop (See Precision
Adjustment Tool- I was at NC School of the Arts, too) Ron Cargile

hmm, you know,
i'm so used to the things we say around the theatre, it took this long into
the thread to even occur to me that this might be considered nonstandard from
the first day's appearance in the theatre of 'self-tapping drywall screws' they
have been called zap screws, no known origin for the term. The drawer
they live in is labeled zap screws and always has been, and even the local hardware
stores know what we mean when we ask for them. And, of course, by extension,
this makes your cordless drill/driver a zap gun, which is especially
satisfying to us children of the 50's, who remember Dick Tracy's wrist radios
and buck rogers' ray guns, and are watching them become reality. We're living
in the future! Don Taco

In the Juilliard
scene shop we had the Kraken - a Porter Cable 3hp router and Barbie's
Dream Router - our laminate trimmer. At Seattle Rep we had tuffets which are low rolling swivel stools great for low projects without killing your
knees. They were featured in Tech Briefs a while back. Colin Buckhurst

Poop Stick - used to prop up a long header when raising a false proscenium type flat. Merel
Ray

A term we use to
indicate any tool you can't remember or don't know the name is a woo woo. Richard Schroeder

I thought that was a jobidoo. Rigger

The other term
I've always used is TyZingy instead of, "one of those plastic cable
tie wraps." Sara Mooney

Tuning Fork = It is piece of wood cut like a tuning fork, hence the name, generally with
3/4" between the tines. One use is to quickly and fairly accurately transfer
a line from one side of a piece of wood to the other. Scott Conklin

Tuning Fork = Magic FingersDavid Boevers

We have a black
box space that has unistrut along the ceiling for hanging lighting equipment.
Around here, the special rectangular nuts with springs on them that thread onto
the yoke bolt and lock into the unistrut are called spring bobs. Mark
Harvey

Boingy Nuts: Uni Strut nuts with attached spring

Do you already
have rope wrench as a monikker for a knife? Mickey Carter

Two pieces of 1X
lumber joined at a 90 degree angle (into an L shape) along their lengths = Hog-trough = Whaler(Wailer?) = Strong-backDuncan Mahoney

And hampers are hampsters around here. Susan L. Kelley

Bolt cutters = the master key (especially during year-end locker clean
up)
Another one my girlfriend just heard while volunteering at the local museum
is ghost poop for packing peanuts. Keith Houghton

Mr.-Make-It-Fit:
16lb. sledge
Flammer: anything you can't quite find the name of - "The flammer on
the M gun is bent. It bones the fastener." Dave Kaina

Mr. Wood - a block of wood (with electrical tape wrapped around both ends and the name
MR. WOOD in the middle) used to shut of many circuit brakers all at once. Will
Kent

I seem to always
have to ask for the cable stretcher at focus, i.e. a 5' jumper. Shamus
McConney

Here are two--used
first in Truman University's theatre department, back in the '80's and still
in use today, and another, origin unknown:Nernee (or Nerney):
An unknown but important-appearing piece of metal or plastic. You don't know
the source, and you don't know what it is or what it's used for or what it's
from, but you do know that if you toss it out, it will turn out to be a little
used but essential gadget from a critically important piece of equipment, and
will cost a minimum of $57.72 to replace (+ three weeks of time and additional
shipping and handling). If you keep it around, it will turn out to be utterly
non-essential, and will clutter the shop for all eternity.

Thorn: any quick sharp fastener--nail, screw, staple. "Put a thorn
in it right there."

Zeeter: Cordless drill/screw gun. Came from a bastardization of Makita. "Send that zeeter down this way when you're done." Also used as a
verb--"Hey, zeeter that thorn in for me, will you?" Nancy Whiting

Rope wrench for knife has always amused me [though I, personally cannot bring myself to
actually cut a rope due to a traumatic short rope experience I had as a child]. Peter Ballenger

And when I was
back at the U. of Hartford, a pinchbar (= prybar = flat version of a crowbar)
was lovingly referred to as an Attitude Adjuster. As in: we'll convince
that doohicky to *want* to come apart from that thingamajig. Ken Porter

At my high school, I once had a crew that refused to refer to the drills as anything but screwdrivers or "the whir-y things". Another crew I had dubbed corrugated nails "scrails". Laurie Thomas

While teaching intro to stagecraft at Florida State I had a student answer the question "Why use screws instead of nails?" with "Because they have better gription" I’ve used it since. Jessica Laney

The "Crescent Hammer" is useful for installing or removing bolts, and may be utilized by stage electricians to make adjustments to stubborn equipment. The "Ratchet Hammer" can be an acceptable substitute. The "Implement of Persuasion" is a bigger hammer (i.e., sledge or dead-blow). I picked up this term as a stagehand in Seattle. Mark Langley

"Frou-frou"
is an onomatopoeic French word which literally means "rustle" but
came to be used for bits of ruffle, lace and other frippery that made ladies'
dresses rustle as they walked. From describing the sound, it drifted to describe
the trims themselves. Pat Kight

In Hawaii the term wiki-wiki means hurry or quick. Huli means to flip over top for bottom, and kapakahi means crooked or lopsided."Shell"

To which I would
add "Hemo," literally meaning "to throw" but is commonly
used to mean shoving (usually accompanied by much grunting)
And my favorite: "Huli maka huli" where "maka" is
eye. If da bruddah wen hemo da roadcase an' slip, he go huli maka huli.... Frank E. Merrill

Terms from Down
Under:
DFL - Local casual crew as in Dumb F*** LocalMechs or Flymans Focus - Where the LD decides their scale drawing of
a lamp means an LX bar will go between 2 close Flats with the resultant when
flying
said flat."fly it in/out a Leckie" - placebo trim on any flown piece.Snotter - rope piece 6'-10' long with eye splice in one end.Te KutiKuti (tay cutty cutty)- psuedo NZ Maori for any cutting tool,
saw, craft knife, sledge hammer required for some urgent and generally suspect
redesign."as ___ as a ___ thing" (eg as heavy as a heavy thing, as stupid
as a stupid...) used when short on wit when a comment must be made. Craig
Hanham; Wellington, New Zealand

Luchtklampen
= Air clamps (english) Clamps you use to rig a truss when there are no rigging
points at all.e.g. : Can you rig this truss here? Sure give me some air clamps
and I'll fix it. It's a term which is often used in Belgium in theatre and rock'n
roll when it is completely impossible to rig a truss to a structure like a grid
or the beams of the roof.
It can also be used as a way to take the mickey out of people, sending one of
the stagehands out to a hardware store and letting him ask for airclamps. I've
never known anybody who did not come back emptyhanded, but they always seemed
slightly upset.
I hope you understand what airclamps are, if not write me a mail back and I'll
send you a drawing. Tom Seeldraeyers

That's
ok, Tom. In our tool room they're right between the board stretchers and sky hooks.

Beach:
sandbags

Greenie: a small screwdriver usually used for gain adjustment in wireless
mics (so named for their usual green handle). Also known as a tweaker. Timothy Folster

In the costume shop at the Shakespeare festival when they'd pull stock and
add frou-frou, etc. for the upcoming show they were polishing turds. Tom Hansen

I was hit in the
face with the fact that we have different words for the same things when having
a conversation with a costume designer at a cast party. I mentioned that we'd
had to "180" a platform , and he took the longest time trying to understand
me. When someone else said "pick it up and turn it around 180 degrees,"
he exclaimed "Oh! Half a petticoat!" Mickey Carter

French Alteration: a placebo alteration done to the costume of a troublesome actor. Jenny Kenyon

Shinies: Reflective bits, usually on a costume, such as sequins, designed to catch the
light and draw the eye. "That costume sure has a lot of shinies on it."
Also sparklies. Dale Farmer

High Impedence Air Gap meaning, of course, that it isn't plugged in. The8rgrl

On tour one time
we went to a college somewhere in the southern California desert, where they
had those molded-Y twofers, which they affectionately referred to as Gumbys. At least they hadn't painted them green. Tom Hansen

The theatre I worked
at this summer affectionately referred to the molded rubber two-fers as rubber
chickens... Andy Leviss

The Whorehouse aka 3-fer blocks (lots of females, and one male) John D. Emery

Some of my high school electricians call 2-fers Pimps. (One male, 2 females.)
I don't take with it myself, but I do like the previously
mentioned "Rubber chicken." Jon Ares

When I first started
doing theatre back in college, myself and a few others on the light crew were
biology majors. We referred to the Altman lighting wrench as the Planaria,
a small cross shaped flat-worm that it resembled. Thinking back now, it's one
of the few things I remember from that Biology degree! Susan Kelleher

The wrench some
other have called a Century wrench was called a Bash wrench in college.
At one job site, I asked if anyone had a Bash wrench, and 2 of the electricians
pulled out a hammer. Considering the units we were about to focus, I almost
let them use them. John D. Emery

Years ago I arrived in Aruba in the carib to do a tour show ( small dance tour
) had no advance info on the venue, was carrying no gear, etc etc etc. Was informed
on the phone upon arrival (before getting to the venue) that they had a good
compliment of elbow fresnels couldn't figure out what the hell they meant.
Get to the venue, they had a bunch of Strand ( UK ) ellipsodials, base up configuration
(this was PRE Quartz) with step lenses. this was an "elbow fresnels" Keith Arsenault

The Thing That Goes BEEP
as in: Please go get the GAM Check.
The what?
The GAM Check.
??
Black, about this long.... You plug the light into it.
???
"The thing that goes BEEP."
Ohhhhh! Scott C. Parker

Rubber rope = cable.Susan L. Kelley

Bounce Focus - repeatedly raising and lowering an electric to ground focus it and then check
focus when a "Toshi" won't work Colin BuckhurstBounce focus = French focusing or yo-yo focusing. Rigger

Zen Focus: bounce
focus. Tony Galanti

Carpentry Focus - hitting a light with scenery Colin Buckhurst

Rope = orange extention cords why? ok, once i didnt have enuff rope to
secure scenery to the top of my van, but many orange extention cords... and
some people never let me forget that day. MartyBlackEagle

An extention cord
is a Stinger. Sigrid Wolf

Ma-Bob (short for "thing-a-ma-bob") is another term for a Trombone.
A length of pipe usually between 6" and 3' with a c-clamp at one end: used
for hanging lights.Sigrid Wolf

SUS (as
in Suspect): ringing out the lighting unit to find out the dimmer they
are in (dimmer per circuit) John D. Emery

STRAND: Webster's version: to place or leave in a helpless position John D. Emery

God-mike = mike that the engineer uses to talk back to the performers Fat Man and Little Boy--old style Kliegl ellipsoidals Shinbuster--dance lights hung on booms at just the right height :-) Michael
Sorensen

or Headbuster - for the same obvious reason.... IAEG

We use the term One-Legged to refer to a broken connector on an XLR. Chris "Chris"
Babbie

Alien Mother - the cage built around dimmer beach, with cable running every which way to
and from it BACatlarge

Organic Multi-Image
Progression Facilitator: stick of wood used to move manual slide projector
cross faders. If you had "Rosco" in front of it it costs an extra
$100.Non-Organic Multi-Image Progression Facilitator: same as above but made
of a piece of conduit Ken Wesler

Lumo-suck- promised to director who insisted that a fresnel's light not
bleed on area around actor. "We'll just aim a lumo-suck at that"

DBG - dark be
gone - the opposite of a lumo-suck. Used with a director who didn't want
a shadow under a table. "We'll just use a little DBG on that" Ken
Wesler

Where I come from,
it's "lumasuck" and it comes in spray cans similar to WD-40.
just spray a little up behind an instrument and all light bleed vanishes! sam kusnetz

Goldsmith the
Cues: Left over from the days of piano dimmer boards on Broadway, before
computers did everything. The lighting cuesheets were spread-sheeted by hand
in order to be able to follow the cues and used to translate the cuesheets to
a cut down road version, or (when necessary) to more modern electronic boards.
Derived from the paper it was done on - 11x17 spread sheets printed by Goldsmith
Brothers. W H "Batch" Batchelder

Intermittent
Cyclonic Turbuloids - created by the lead Audio Tech at the Sands Casino
in Atlantic City (I think), this item falls into the placebo category. Someone
asks "What's wrong with the sound?" while the tech is trying to fix
the problem. The tech, annoyed at the interruption, replies "It's OK, it's
just Intermittent Cyclonic
Turbuloids". Also, any unexplainable audio malfunction. Mike Tartaglio

Terms relating
to adjusting the ceramic lamp base in the back of a par can, in order to alter
the alignment of the filament. Spin the Bottle
Turn the Banana
Grab the Pickle William Kenyon

Electron Hose: any sort of electrical cable William Kenyon

Robots: Intelligent (?) lights Nancy Shaw

PEBCAC -
a term used to describe why something isn't working through the lighting console
due to programmer error........... Problem Exists Between Chair And Console

ESTO - a term used to describe why some equipment just can't be made
to operate properly ........
Equipment Smarter Than Operator Nancy Shaw

Hockey-Puck - the SCR diode block in a dimmer module

Dip-Free Cross-Fade:
on the old two scene preset lighting consoles, when a designer started making
adjustments in quarter points, we used to crossfade to the same exact cue. The
resulting dip would convince the designer the adjustment had been made and we'd
hear "oh, that looks much better." Thus, we'd be "free of the
dip." Someone must have told; we now have dip-'less' crossfaders. Bill
Atkins

Stage Toilet Paper - its all the tape or gel scraps left of the stage
after stripping an electric that always end up stuck to the bottom of your boots. George Fields

BeamOut: similar to "lumasuck", availible in spray cans to eliminate that little
bit of light bleeding where the shutter cut just can't (or won't) help you. KT

One term I use
a lot when explaining electricity to folks who don't understand it is Magic
Smoke. The wire carries it around. Voltage equals pressure, and when the
magic smoke starts to leak out you know something is broken. The magic smoke
in the wires is also acidic, so don't touch the wires.

Zoobs: slang term for electricity. "Give me zoobs for this dimmer
rack."

Power Hose: Electrical feeder and extension cords. "Get some power
hose, we need some zoobs for the podium light."

Smoke Testing: Plugging in and turning on any piece of electrical gear
after a repair or for the first time. If the magic smoke leaks out, the gear
failed it's test.

Gozinta and
goesouta: The two dmx plugs on a lighting pack or the connectors on an intercom
pack. "Take this DMX cable and and run it from the board up to the gozinta
on that pack, then run another from the goesouta plug over to the other dimmer
pack." Dale Farmer

When a programmer makes a mistake playing the wrong cue or grabbing the wrong light it can be a Digital Error, as in the digit on your hand. Ryan Breneisen

Tap Light: Old lights with loose connections or lamps that need to be whacked to come back on. I've seen this done with a shoe thrown from the stage, 25' below. Eric Allgeier

I believe it does. In our neck o' the woods, we call both a Jesus wrench. Chris Davis

Although I think
the term has pretty much disappeared from recent usage around here, we used
to call the small set bolt on that locked the yoke stud on a Century C-clamp
a Jesus Bolt. I think the origin of the term was the amount of profanity
occasioned by any of the following:
1. Finding the bolt just loose enough so that, although it felt OK when you
focused, the instrument would slip at the slightest bump.
2. Finding that someone had removed the bolt altogether.
3. Finding that someone had gotten overly enthusiastic in trying to make sure
that the instrument was tight, wringing the head off the bolt.
4. Finding that the bolt was loose, but that the unit was hung in a position
such that you couldn't get a wrench in to tighten it. John Bracewell

Pan bolt being
the Jesus Bolt ('cause that's what you say when it breaks), or the awh
S%#T screw. Susan L. Kelley

When I was a kid, my dad showed me a little spring retaining clip that installed
in a groove in a rod to keep stuff from sliding off the end. He told me it was Jesus Clip. When I asked him why, he told me that's what I'd be saying
when every time it flew off somewhere as I tried to get in on or off. I'm afraid
that, over time, my name for these has gotten a bit longer and a lot less spiritual.
Also applies to really small cotter pins. Ken Erfourth

Barbecue (bar' bi kyoo), v., to flip over a flat or similarly flat piece of scenery while
carrying it horizontally. [From the process usually applied to nice racks of
baby back ribs. As in, "let's barbecue this flat before we Iwo Jima it
(thanks to someone else for a term new to me) or the pretty painted side is
going to face upstage"] Jim Dougherty

I've heard rotisserie for that same maneuver. MissWisc

We call it Surabachi-ing a piece here. (After the mountain on the island
of Iwo Jima.) Dave Vick

This is similar to the term 180 [as in degrees of arc] a flat or set
piece, whether on the X, Y, or Z axis. Richard D Niederberg

The Muncie 180 = when you put the scenery down and the stagehands switch
ends. A friend swears two students did this in Muncie when told to 180 a flat
and put it in the truck. Brian Crow

86, as in
"86 that platform before you put it down." Meaning, I believe to reverse
it or "do-si-do" it. '86' is supposed to have originally come from
the food service industry. It meant that the item was no longer available from
the kitchen, The cook would shout "86 the tomato soup!" as he poured
the last bowl. The migration to the bar and club industry included the original
(to be out of a certain drink) and also referred to patrons who were no longer
welcome. "He's 86'ed, he can't come back in here." In theatre, I have
only heard this referred to meaning to lose the item, as in "86 these flats
(strike). Anyone who knows where the original came from, I'd love to know. Chris "Chris" Babbie

Falcetti - to stand on the unloaded side of a frame and pretend to foot it for the guys actually touching the scenery. Always taking the lighter side of anything heavy. ie. "Dave go Falcetti that wall while they rig it to the pipe. Named after an actual Local 33 stagehand. Dave Dawson

New York a Show means to label all pieces and parts of equipment in the shop prior to load-in. Nancy Shaw

When working with
my crew, a phrase often used is "kill this". which generaly
means:
a tool: to get it out of direct sight or put it away
scrap wood: to throw out
a set piece: to strike. Heidi Hunt

I work at a touring venue and we occasionally have to remove some rows of seats from our orchestra section which come apart in sections of three or four seats attached to a platform. The seats sit on the back edge of the platform and are top-heavy so when we place the unit on a four-wheeler to roll them to the loading dock, they are often off balance. One of our Master Elex is, shall we say, petite, and can't do the lifting required to get the units from the orchestra floor to the stage, but she happens to be a perfect weight to sit on the front of the platform as a counter balance to the chairs while they roll to the loading dock. So this began the use of the term "Meghann-Weight" to indicate any time we need a small person to sit on the platform and be rolled across the stage.

This eventually turned into a term used for any time we needed a human body to simply hold or balance an object so the folks who had more strength and lifting ability could be free to do so. At one time or another we have all been the "Meghann-weight." You often hear someone on crew holding onto a road case at risk of rolling down the raked aisle asking if anyone is available to be a Meghann-Weight while they get something out of the case.

The term can also be altered to be used as a height indication for people on the fly rail, as our TD is 6'5" and sometimes forgets that most people cannot easily hang a pipe that is over their heads. So we call out a direction to the rail such as "First Electric in to Meghann-Height please!" (regardless of whether Meghann is actually working that day.) Zhana Morris

One of my professors often designed in a style he referred to as Circus Wagon
Baroque Stuart Wheaton

One designer I
work with loves Firch and Gnerr (sp?) which refers to rustic set dressing.
The firch is hard stuff (tools, farm implements etc) and the gnerr is softer
(foliage, burlap etc). Colin Buckhurst

Toblerones - for periaktoi. David Boevers

Our shop calls
them PterodactylsSarah Gowan

These are probably
quite ancient but there are two materials I've come to realize are utter necessities
demanded by virtually all designers and especially technicians. They are:Unobtainium: when nothing else will do;Instantanium: when you need it right away and overnight delivery isn't
fast enough. Ralph Bloom III

Re:Unobtainium: it comes from Faroffistan Jay Young

Acoustinite Audio Enhancing Flooring similar to Masonite
Strange thing about Acoustinite.......it's properties change in direct relation to the benefit of the person that is being asked to do the labor.....as in, if it's already down, audio quality will be better if it stays down........ Damon Carvalho

West Coast...
Tie the scrim to itself, and throw it in the bag or hamper. East Coast... Stuff the damn scrim in the hamper. Mark O'Brien

How 'bout - goods:
legs = tormentors
borders = teasers
Or the look on the new kid's face when we say we're going to "hang the
blacks"?? Tom Hansen

Reminds me of one of the worst notices I ever saw posted on a call board:
"Volunteers needed to dead hang blacks for Raisin In The Sun". Sorry,
it's true :-) Chris Davis

Yeah, I've experienced that. On a related note, one of my students thought I
said "stretch the Muslim" not "stretch the muslin" on the
flat frame...that also brought a look of abject horror... Shawn Palmer

I learned never to use that expression. My first tour with my previous employer
through the highlands and lowlands on Virginia. We were in a KFC/Taco Bell discussing
what we had to do after the lunch break. The TD said "Well, I think we
need to hang the blacks before we do anything else." The restaurant got
quiet. We finished eating in quite a hurry and got out of there. It's draperies
and legs and stuff for me now. Stephen Litterst

Sitting in a bar at lunch. Just finished hanging the soft goods for a show.
They'd been in hampers for quite awhile and were dirty. I turned to my foreman
and said..."after lunch break out the corn brooms for the crew and beat
the blacks. The bar got very, very quiet. We explained. We left. We never went
back. Bill Sapsis

Anybody ever yell "Kill the workers"?? Pat Dillon

Not exactly the
same but it jogged my memory of the time I was told to go get a "dead baby
seal" to weigh down a flat jack. My face must have looked pretty horrifyed,
cause he broke down and pointed to a pile of cut inner tubes turned into sand
bags. Dead baby seals. Merel Ray

Since we're in
North Carolina, we can do this, but I wouldn't use this term above the Mason-Dixon
line. When you're in a BIG hurry, and you run the border (leg, other stage black)
into the floor and roll it up in a big, round ball (down its longest side, of
course) so that it resembles a giant hay bale and toss it into a hamper, this
is "Southcoasting". John Andrew MUNRO

Along the lines
of southcoasting a soft good, sometimes things get blintz-folded around here, describing a piece of goods that begins being folding with the
best of intentions, only to end up looking like a ball of mess. This usually
happens to large panels like blackout drapes. Chris Kennedy

Hard Goods - As opposed to soft goods aka anything that is flown, but is not made of fabric, Example, portals, drum kits. Coined during a Blast! tour stop. Donald Kramer

Meter Maid:
a production manager (time and money), also a Clockwatcher ("when's
break?") Bill Atkins

A good rule of
thumb for the audio assist - Always eat what the mixer eats so if it's
bad, you both get sick and you don't have stay and mix the show alone. And if
you do get to go out for lunch/dinner and the mixer doesn't, be sure to tell
him how good it was when you get back. Mark Spector

"You've
been dutched" - made the victim of an inept repair or assembly. After
a Florida stagehand. Have you noticed that most stagehand locals have members
named Dutch, Liverpool, Junior, Hairball, and Animal?
Riggers and flymen are sometimes nicknamed "yo-yo". Bill Atkins

I always like gooshi-gooshi or nuckemfuky for mastic, sealant, or caulking. "Shell"

'Round here that blue stick-em they sell for poster art and for stabilizing
props is well known as Schmooie Andrew D Carson

Fluffyshmoogoo - light weight spackle Kurt F Oian

I worked in a regional theatre years ago that called water-based contact cement
(it was green or blue colored), Gorilla Snot. Tommy Louie

No NO NO That stuff is Smurf guts, or Pureed Smurf.... Stuart
Wheaton

If we want to stretch
"technical" to include makeup (and why not?), we've always referred
to cheapo hair gel as Elephant Snot. The same term was often applied
to the wallpaperpaste mixture used to wet down and apply muslin dutching back
when we still used soft-covered flats Pat Kight

I recall that the
yellow Insulating Lubricant for pulling wires was known as Elephant Snot. Richard D Niederberg

Expanding polyurethane
"spray foam" = Elephant SnotDuncan Mahoney

How about Jesus paint? Back at USU, we used to have a 5 gallon paint
bucket that all the paint leftovers went into that would be mixed up and used
as base paint. Since it would sit for weeks at a time, it would get rather ripe.
We'd send freshmen over to get the Jesus paint. When asked why it was called
that, we'd pry the top off and say, "Whew! Jesus!" Michael Sorensen

At one school I
was at, we called this stuff toxic waste. Here at OU, it's lovingly called ass paint. Clare Adams

I hope this doesn't upset anyone here, but at one of my schools, that bucket
of musical comedy grey (olde paints in one bucket) - the students call
it the dead infant grey due to the unholy smell. Jon Ares

And the color is poodle s**t brown after you mix 'em all! Susan L.
Kelley

BooBoo Be Gone:
flat black paint

Roll of Paint: Gaffers tape used to "paint" an object black Ron Cargile

Spooge (and
Spooge Gun): Any caulk-type product and the tool used to apply same. First
heard at a farm auction in PA Amish country, and too good to pass up. Spooge
is now used for any thick, sticky, messy product you slap in or on something
else to add texture or fill in gaps. Nancy Whiting

Comesie-Gosie: Painting term meaning that the coverage should not be even. A close relative of scumbling but usually using only ONE color or wash. Eric Allgeier

Gravity Well: Roughly cylindical area of space centered on anyone working at heights from
the floor to the person working.

Here at the Phoenix
Theatres, University of Victoria we have a furniture storage room called Wicker
World, another storage area called Hobbit Land and our Gel storage/Lx
fixit space is called Sick Bay. Keith Houghton

Blender Sports - Opening night party in the tech offices Glenn Horton

Halfway House:
area for set storage between the stage and shop. Keith Taylor

At USM we have
2 main spaces - the "Thrust" and the "Black Box". In between
the two spaces catwalks is our lighting storage room called "The Cave"
after the Bat Cave from Batman. It got it's knickname because our LD Grad student
has a pouch with about 3 multi tools and pens, pencils, knives, lighters and
cigarettes, named the Bat Pouch. Jason "Blue" Herbert

Another dilema
was solved when working at a local high school which had four electrics. When
we were screaming instructions to each to focus we had to say words not just
letters so......starting from the house going up stage. A-Audience, C-Center
(Stage), D-Drop, but B was a problem because it was over the pit, and there
isn't a b word other than bassoon and that isn't cool, so we coined the term Borchestra. Andrew Woodbridge

Favorite term for
the video production area: Video Village. Always makes me think of Hillary..."It
take a village"...sometimes more truth than not in video production.

Another gem for the audio mix position (aka: Front Of House) is the term: Mix
World...probably because the universe revolves around them. Tom Moyer

Archeological
Sorting: How the storage room is arranged. The oldest stuff on the bottom,
the newest stuff on the top. 'I sorted prop storage archeologically. ' Dale
Farmer

One of my favorites
is the thing you sometimes found when setting up your set for the first time.
We used improved stage screws a lot and after the set was in position we want
around and put inserts into the floor to hold down our jacks. when there was
already one there, it became a Magic Hole. John Chenault

I hadn't thought of this in a long time, but when I first got to Ithaca, we
had a student who didn't know the correct name for ethafoam backer rod. So he
called it electric dildo! John Bracewell

Our properties instructor has her own language in the shop which we have dubbed
"Sandeez":Staple the piss out of it - be sure the upholstry material is well securedTits on a worm - a very detailed prop Kurt F Oian

Jiz / Kak - same as gak, when used as a noun. (*Gakked up* being something else entirely)

Toeing in - driving nails or screws at an angle Colin Buckhurst

Gazinta - A piece of hardware that fits into another (that piece gazinta the other one). Susan L. Kelley

"...like
a monkey f***in' a football" = used to describe the situation when
a person or group isn't really qualified for the task they are trying to
accomplish ... (see also "cluster-f***") Fred Schoening,
Jr.

see also Goat RodeoIAEG

I always thought it was... This looks like 3 monkeys trying to f##k a football. Mark O'Brien

And the sound guys refer to it as three monkeys trying to f*** a balloon. It
adds a soundtrack to the vivid visual... Chris "Chris" Babbie

...so the client
is represented by a committee of three, none with stage experience; their lighting
guy is colour blind; their two sound guys are deaf; it's the first show of the
tour; and we are into the 9th hour of a 5 hour load-in. Somebody (it may have
been me) refers to it all with a spontaneous approximate spoonerism, calling
it a "flustercluck"... Art Norris

Around here "I'm
going to find a wrench" is the polite way of saying that you're headed
to the restroom and might be there for a while. Christopher Hofmann

Working on films,
I learned that a clothes pin is a C-47Sigrid Wolf

C-47 is the military parts number for a milspec wooden clothespin of specific
dimensions and pinch strength. Richard D Niederberg

...and let us not forget some of the nifty phrases the military have generously
loaned us, such as:FUBAR = F***ed Up Beyond All RecognitionSNAFU = Situation Normal: All F***ed up Fred Schoening, Jr.

TARFU = Things Are Really F***ed Up Colin Buckhurst

OSRIC =
Oh S**t, Run In Circles Stephen Litterst

From Australia : "Kangaroo Edward" (Roo Ted): Australian euphamism for non-op (or, more precisely, the FU part of SNAFU) As in "that light is Kangaroo Edward" Regards from Down Under - Bruce Heath

MUNG(ed): Mashed Until No Good

MUNG: Miscellaneous
Unclaimed Nonessential Garbage. Much more colorful than 'Misc' when labeling
a drawer or box containing leftover bits + pieces. Told to me by my father.
Although he was at one point a techie, this may have originated from a coworker
in a photography studio. Ken Porter

SANO: cleaning
the stage space for the arrival of the talent John D. Emery

Tango Uniform - which is code for TU, or Tits Up. Refers to anything totally dead. William
Kenyon

IN: DownOUT: upSTRIKE: lots o' work John D. Emery

Going over to the dark side. When a tech auditions for a role. Randy
Whitcomb

To beat upon something with a hammer until it resumes working or moves into
position = Dynamic RecalibrationDuncan Mahoney

A term an old engineer I worked for once frequently used described pounding
the side of a rack or a piece of equipment until it started working again. The
term: lateral maintenance.

"Lose this":
phrase spoken to someone being handed an item that needs to just go away.

We had had a minor train wreck during a show, and were discussing it in a rather
animated fashion afterwards in the bar. I said something to the effect of '...and
everyone was yelling at me, and I couldn't get the knife out of the dog...'
A couple of people nearby were apparently quite taken aback. So for non-standard
terms I would add:Train WreckKnifeDogBACatlarge

finger welding--anytime
you get a shock Michael Sorensen

From Kansas City's
Starlight Theater (thee ate' er), the shop motto (a dozen years ago or more): "Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a chalk, cut it with a chainsaw." (I actually saw painted scenery being trimmed onstage with a circular saw, with
actors onstage, during tech rehearsal - while those of us in the house (8000-seat
outdoor theater) were dodging spent shells from the city's July 4th fireworks
being shot off from the field behind the stage.) Glenn Horton

Gridfrog-
the noise made from the grid if a tech finds the need to break wind while working
overhead (or anywhere, for that matter). Also known as Texas Barking Spiders.
The odor is explained by saying "probably just some old paint". Mike
Tartaglio

We routinely use
something called an HBR. It stands for Hassle-to-Benefit Ratio. When
the HBR gets to be negative, we go for a drink......... Simon Raybould

Gravity Test,
v. to drop something (usually being thrown out anyway) from a great height to
make sure gravity is still working. Brandeis University, 1994. We did a Gravity
Test with a huge wooden desk during strike, trying to see if we could hit the
dumpster from the 4th floor (rather than carry it all that way). Yep, Gravity
Works!

Throwing or
Slinging Pig: the process of loading or unloading counterweights William
Kenyon

Buttering Mouse
Turds - doing non-essential paint notes

Stick a Fork
in It - its done. Bill Atkins

Cattywampus:
for something rickety, skewed, otherwise misaligned or approaching failure (cannot
remember the name of the prop tart who taught it to me but she was good theater
folks) Eli

Working in a small
theatre, in the middle of Pennsylvania has led to the use of the term Cattywampus
to describe the normal state of our delivered lumber. This term means that the
wood is not only cupped, but bowed and warped. Andrew Woodbridge

Doofer:
this is more of a Stage Managerment term, I guess, referring to a rehearsal
prop that is standing in for the real thing. Taken from, this isn't the real
thing but it will doofer now. KT

Boat Anchor:
Any heavy object that is useless but still kept around 'Just in case...'. Derived
from what would be a better use for the object in question. See also Doorstop

A mate of mine, Ken, refers to a CTTM, Crash Tinkle Tinkle Moment. It is that moment at which a, usually expensive, piece of equipment meets an irresistible force or immovable object. These moments usually happen when you have had a visit from the Fuck Up Fairy. Kevin Blyth

When you have a problem that cannot be explained or is an operator error...we call that an I.D.10 T. Error. It's more polite to write it that way, especially if it's your boss. Jonathan Barber

Intern or Freshman Management Tool: Any heavy object that can be wielded; preferably with low wind resistance. Examples include: short lengths of pipe, scrap 2x4, broken broom handles and bar clamps. It makes a good answer when a young, bright-eyed newcomer holds up a big, old-fashioned nail puller and asks, "What's this?" Eric Allgeier

Tail-down - To suspend a batten or other piece of scenery below the real
batten, for various reasons, usually with aircraft cable. Tom Hansen

(Contractor's name withheld) Bowline - a term I heard somewhere we were
recently to describe the not-a-knot used by said contractor's employees to send
stuff to the grid. BACatlarge

Triple Halifax - that knot ya run across that you can't identify, but has more ins and outs
than conceivablePredator Knot - same as above Tim Resch

Around here, that's a Triple Yocum, named for Jim Yocum, one of our prop
guys who is genetically programmed to be unable to tie any knot
properly. (Can I get an amen, Phil Johnson/Rich Lindsay?) Also known as a Halifino
knot. As in:
"What kind of knot is *that*??" (with disgust in the voice)
"Halifino..." Dave Vick

We call those knots
a friction knot. Don't know what kind of a knot it was meant to be, but
friction seems to be holding it.
Along those lines (sorry for the pun) how about the gopher knot: any
knot that requires you to go for your knife to "untie" it. John
D. Emery

Lotsa Knot:
similar to the "Friction Knot". Lotsa ins and outs and loops and whatever
that will probably hold but shouldn't have been used.Gravity Knot: Same as "Friction Knot" and "Lotsa Knot".
It holds due to the gravity of the situation should it fail. Ron Cargile

Many years ago
I was preparing to rig a production of Peter Pan in a theatre in NC. After getting
the theatre specs, told the producer that she would need batten extensions in
order for us to hang enough track (so that the operators were well into the
wings). I was told "OK." When I got to the theatre, there were no
batten extensions. When I asked why, she said that no one there knew what a
"batten" was. When I pointed it out to her she said, Oh, you mean
a "BAR." I think I have been on at least two jobs since where
I have heard this term used. Delbert Hall

Have we had Sundaying as a reference to tying a snub line yet? Colin Buckhurst

Hasn't everybody
at some time wished they had a Sky Hook to magically hang something.
Especially where there is no fly space! Sigrid Wolf

Breasting AKA: Hootering (being PC; cuz there is a restaurant with that name) John D. Emery

Spanner at The Herberger Theatre Center, Phoenix AZ: a loader who puts one foot on the
T-track while loading (not allowed - thats for Uncle Bill) John D.
Emery

Piss on that
bag: adding just a few more pounds to a sandbag John D. Emery

And of course, woof! means "that's good, lock it." That was coined when someone
on the rail got impatient and said "SPEAK!!!" Mickey Carter

Picnic Line:
the hand line with a bucket on the end from the fly floor or loading bridge
to the deck. Used to send small parts and (mostly) coffee aloft. W H "Batch"
Batchelder

Hatchet Knot:
any knot you need a hatchet to undo Keith Taylor

Double-Twisted
Chicken Hitch: just like it sounds ( from the collected wisdom of John (Ugli)
Bradshaw "If you can't tie a good knot...better tie a lot of knots") Eli

Holy Knot - This is a knot of seemingly random twists loops and hitches that you either a) pray will hold will you tie it, or b) pray the culprit responsible for it gets hit with a rather large sandbag as you dig out your Knot Wrench. Jeremy Hopf

When I was on tour with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, as the flyman, we had a 3 second gap in between 2 songs in "Revelations". In that 3 second gap a blue scrim had to fly out and the white scrim had to fly in. I was told by the Master Carpenter (E.J. Corrigan) that he didn't want to hear an "Audible Trim Mark" when the white scrim came in.Audible trim mark = bottom pipe smacking the deck.
I always took the white scrim "in" pull and let the house flyman take the blue scrim out that way there was never an "audible trim mark" Rick Neidig

A couple of decades ago in summer stock I overheard an actor talking about the
tools in the scene shop refer to the radio alarm saw. John Himmelberger

Radio alarm saw
reminded me of a tool we use called the nomadic air gun. the name obviously
from badly spelled test answer. Richard Schroeder

Brownwood Texas, February 1978
Joffrey II Dancers Tour.
Venue: HS Auditorium
Crew: HS Students carrying empty Coca-Cola cans to spit their tobacco in ( I
am not makin this up )
First Order of Biz: Clean dead rodents out of dressing rooms before company
arrives ( I am not makin this up )
Second Order of Biz: Scratching head at first then trying to not laugh too hard
when finding out that their term for glass rondels is Gelatoids ( I am
not makin this up ) IAEG

Many years ago I used to do sound for the annual lampoon show done by the graduating
class of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. It was an extravaganza
of effects and scenery, with the humor tending toward the gynecological. Over
the years they had developed an entire lexicon of "theatrical" terms,
and I decided it was easier to speak to them in their language. A few examples:
Battens were "poles", drops were "flyers".
You'd "cone in" a followspot to make the beam smaller. One
would "tease a flyer down" until it was at the right height
at which point it was correctly "teased". And of course stage
left and stage right were reversed -- that was the only one I asked them to
change, to protect my sanity. Paul Garrity

My friend John
Tissot tells another tale of the Three Rivers, about the time he was loading
in at Pittsburgh's Civic Light Opera and the house electrician came up to him
and asked what he should do with the killer whales.
"The what?"
"The killer whales. You know, the whales! With the killers in them!"
"WHAT?!?!"
After a few minutes of this, it was discovered that the electrician was saying
"color wheels" in Pittsburgh-ish. Paul Garrity

When Washington
Ballet came through our hall, they had "Beer Pusher" listed
on the trucks inventory. We said "beer pusher?" They said at a college
stop one of the "stage hands" saw their hand truck and said "oh,
you have a beer pusher" they said "a beer pusher?" The kid said
"Yeah that's one of those things the guy at the beer store uses to push
the beer kegs around." Curtis S. St. John

Gak: From folk music festivals. Everything else on a stage that doesn't belong to
the sound crew or the backline guy. Music stands, chairs, cups of water, etc. Dale Farmer

[name of person
or animal] piss. Gatorade or other electrolyte drink for the crew at tent events. If it starts
to taste good, you are getting dangerously dehydrated. Dale Farmer

Dirt Pile #1 - The crappy town in the middle of nowhere you're playing this week.

Dirt Pile #2 - The crappy town in the middle of nowhere you're playing next week. John Musarra